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Wednesday, July 4, 2012

The Republican welfare state

The GOP works to insure an oligarchy primarily made of white Americans is at the top of the wealth and income pyramid in the US. These people, in turn, fund the Repblican Party and insure the values of the one per cent are over represented in the US presidency, house and congress.

The Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling was essential the the welfare of the GOP and its affluent base after the humilating defeat of Johm McCain and the Democratic takeover of the US House and Seante in 2008.

The Repblicans are likely to overspend Democrats in the 2012 election, but it may not be enough to put this minority party back in power.

The white oligrachy is made up of Wall Street banksters, corporate CEOs, and defense industry CEOs.

According to Richard H Ropers, the concentration of wealth in the United States is inequitable. In 1996, the United States federal government reported that the net worth of the top 1 percent of people in the United States was approximately equal to that of the bottom 90 percent.

The US Gini index is 2009 was 46.8 according to Wikipedia. as the index approaces 0.50, socail indstability may develop.

Is the 1 per cent concerned? No, it makes sure law enforcement , Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense are well funded to handle any social contingency.

The Upper class values empahsizes higher education for both degrees from prestigious private universities and also for social contacts for their children with other upper calls young adults.

The wealthiest people want to accumulate and maintain wealth. The affluent also maintain of social networks and the power that accompanies such networks. Children of the upper class are typically schooled on how to manage this power and channel this privilege in different forms. The upper class are thus able to maintain their wealth and pass it to future generations.

A lot of the welath transfre occuts before the parents pass away. One author described wealth transfer as U shaped. Assets are transferred form trusts when the a child reaches a certain age and the final transfer occurs from an inhertiance when the parents dies.

For example, when GW Bush first arrived in Texas with his wife, Laura, he deposited $10 million in Texas banks.

The Center for Wealth and Philanthropy also notes that only the privileged upper one percent of U.S. households will inherit roughly one-half of that US financial windfall -- $12.5 trillion.

By comparison, for the majority of Americans, the value of median $29,200 inheritance is actually smaller today than it was two decades ago. Tens of millions of Americans will receive absolutely nothing, or even debt, from their deceased parents. Total net worth of Americans has also dropped because of the huge decline in real estate brought on by the Bush ownership society.

There are two fundamental reasons for this. First, inherited wealth in the U.S. is disproportionately concentrated among a tiny percentage of America’s population. According to a New York Times survey of estates in 2006, the upper two percent of all U.S. estates – the wealthiest – were worth at least $782,300 or more.

This elite upper ten percent of all American households controls the vast majority of the nation’s private wealth that is inherited, from generation to generation.

In terms of net worth, inheritances and gifts have historically accounted for between 20 and 50 percent of total household wealth accumulation in the U.S. Wealth transfers are also an important source of both business and home ownership.

A Projector and Weiss study also found that only 5 percent of households had received a "substantial" proportion of their wealth from inheritance. However, this latter proportion did rise with household wealth, with 34 percent of families with net worth exceeding half a million dollars indicating a substantial bequest. it is also possible that affluent people are under reporting wealth transfer to researchers on this subject.

The 1992-2008 Health and Retirement Survey (HRS). The HRS is a panel survey that began in 1992 with a sample of respondents aged 51 to 61. The authors found that 30 to 40 percent of households eventually receive an inheritance. There are other estimates that around 30 percent of Americans get inheritances..

Supply side economics have helped the affluent by keeping the income tax rate for affluent Americans at historically low rates since World War 2.

This is also why George W. Bush suspended the estate tax and the latest law that the 112th congress produced, let 50,000 millionairess of the hook for the estate tax.

It is, of course, in the best interests of the GOP to keep income and capital gains taxes low for the affluent and to also suspend or repeal the estate tax.